The images sorted, and she saw world turned upside-down, with land instead of sky and vice versa. The land looked like food coloring did when dropped into water, but it was solid and stable.

The parts of the world closest to her were inhabited, marked with messes of glass and machinery that stuck to surfaces and walls. The institution, the infrastructure, the weight of the army—all, when she zoomed far enough back, were part of a singular monolith of a gravity that sucked all energy from her, leaving her gasping.

“You alright?” Andrea asked.

Kenzie shook her head.

“Come on, baby,” Andrea said. “Let’s get you where you belong.”

“Home?” she asked. “Or—my foster home?”

Andrea looked back at Keith, and Keith nodded.

The elevator was distracting. The gold watch on Andrea’s wrist—it had a crystal display. Energy, light, lenses, geometry—everything had a meaning and that meaning was like the safety in numbers.

She wanted to ask a thousand things about Keith and Antonio and she bit her tongue instead. Something was wrong. She’d been broken to begin with and something had outright cracked.

Andrea dropped her off at the new foster house, and Kenzie hurried inside without a word.

She almost hyperventilated, as she went straight to her room.

Her phone. She pulled it out, slammed the door behind her, and went to her bed.

In the background, she could hear Andrea talking to her foster mom.

She found her bag, and she dug the card out of her bag. Only one temporary tattoo left, and a business card with a number on it.

She called, head bowed, phone pressed to her ear so hard it hurt.

“This is Aerobat.”

“This is… you held my hand. You gave me your card. Please help me.”

Before I use this power to do something I regret even more.

⊙

“I didn’t want to do something I regretted,” Kenzie echoed the line of thought from the memory, that seemed so vivid as she stared at the diorama. “Which, you know, I did do. I got lonely or scared, and I tried to get in touch. I scared them more, which is why no faces. They don’t want me simulating them or using them in pictures. I figure it’s the least I could do.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“The funny thing is, you know, I’m mostly better. I’ve been working on things. I have a hard time with boundaries but I can learn some good basic rules to stick to and I stick to them really hard. I’m figuring out the team, I love you guys, I’m kicking ass, I’ve got some great projects on the go.”

It would just make her start crying like a baby, and she needed to get Victoria on her side, make sure that the wrong things weren’t said and that things didn’t get out of control with the group.